Charles won't pay inheritance tax on what he inherits from the queen..

[justlikethatt]

Are people aware? And think this is OK ?

IHT is payable on any bequest that comes from the Sovereign’s personal estate and is received by a beneficiary who is not the next Sovereign. so if Princess Anne were to be gifted the Queen’s horses, IHT would have to be paid on the value of that gift.

Millions of people certainly can't "do the same thing" as the royals. They're allowed to lobby parliament to make sure their finances are protected and get to squirm out of paying all sorts of taxes. We don't know the half of it. It's scandalous what they get away with.

This is from Cornwall Live. I don't know how reliable local news is but anyway...

Prince Charles will not have to pay for inheritance tax as only the current King or Queen is exempt from paying it. Laura Harper, specialist in inheritance tax at Kingsley Napley, said: “Only the reigning sovereign is exempt from inheritance tax and only to the extent that their personally held wealth passes to the next sovereign.

“As such, if the Queen were to leave her personally held estate to Charles, inheritance tax would not apply to her estate.”

But, if the Queen split her estate between her children, they would have to pay for the tax.

I agree with this out parents have already paid tax!

@Legrandsophie I'm not sure why you think it's
okay for him not to pay IHT because he isn't the only one inheriting?

I'm fairly sure he'll inherit the bulk of the estate... although we'll probably never know since the will is likely to be kept secret.

But apart from anything, it would not be common sense to leave significant parts of the estate to others because the exemption is for sovereign-to-sovereign inheritances.

I am literally only talking about the personal assets not the Crown Estate (which is a different matter)

I think we both agreed on another thread, that Sandringham and Balmoral are personal assets and not Crown Estate properties.
In addition, the queen also personally owned other investments, assets and works of art (which included paintings and faberge eggs)

As I said previously, I suspect that there won't be a need to sell a faberge egg to pay any IHT.

IHT is not to do with selling the assets per se.
The transfer of ownership has already taken place, in effect, on the death of the previous owner.
IHT does not assume that the assets are going to be sold by the beneficiary.

These things are as complicated or as simple as people make them.

There is already a precedent for the monarch to pay income tax and capital gains tax (going back to 1993).
In that context, inheritance tax is just another tax.

Found that, 4% in 2020, didn't give percentage 20-21, but number of estates paying increased, threshold frozen until 2026, so percentage will certainly rise. 50% of those estates liable in SE and London - which is where we are. Not sure what the answer is to the crazy inflation on housing in SE, but doesn't feel fair.

The fact that so few are liable can't be just about estate value when it's set so low surely it's also about people avoiding it. It is a horrible thing to deal with when you've just lost someone. Especially when it's an unexpected loss and you aren't prepared for it.

Supposition isn't the same as facts. It is a fact that there are legal ways for people to avoid paying inheritance tax. There have been threads on this very site asking the best way to do this. Some of those very people will do anything in their power to hide their parent’s money so that they can get a bigger inheritance, even if that means their parents may not get the care they need in later life. Now that IS criminal.
Anybody can lobby parliament. Anybody can set up a petition, lobby their MPs, why even vote on who to have in Government!

Have you read the document I link earlier @VivX ?

The rational is the no IHT on Sandrigham and Balmoral is because they are used as working residences as well (they do sometime host foreign dignitaries there) but mainly to keep them free from politics and government influence.

If they had no other source of income than the crown estates they be vulnerable to manipulation from political factions or liable to try to get involved. It is part of creating the three separate estates of our government system- the crown, Parliament and the judiciary.

I think it’s entirely fair. Our house has quadrupled in value since we bought it. That’s an awful lot of unearned, untaxed money. Our estate might well be over the threshold but if £250k taxfree each for our kids isn’t enough for them, we’ve gone badly wrong with their upbringing.

You do realise who he'd be paying inheritance tax to... here's a clue.. HMRC: His Majesty's Revenue & Custons... himself

Now where would be the sense in that? 🤦‍♂️

You sound like one of those types determined to find a way to be offended whilst implementing completely inefficient cost squandering systems... I'd hazard a guess you work in local government or the NHS!

Thanks for pointing out that website- it’s astounding how much is held in “trust” by the RF!

Billions of pounds of art work- they’d never be able to pay the inheritance tax on it anyway- just as well some owned by the crown.

Why not just nationalise it and display it for free in our national museums? That way more us would be aware of it and enjoy it?

amp.spectator.co.uk/article/nationalise-the-royal-collection/amp

I thought we were talking about Charles and the tax dodging? What's track and trace to do with it? Or do we have to think of another outrage to make the royals not seem as bad.

Oh give over with the jealousy thing. Jealousy doesn't come into it. If they don't want to be talked about let them all retire and not take another penny off the hard pressed taxpayer. Until then we have the right to discuss their tax dodging and other unsavoury stuff

@Legrandsophie I know the published "rationale" I just happen not to agree with aspects of it or the blanket situation it has led to.

As I have previously mentioned, Balmoral and Sandringham are not even the only assets I'm talking about. There are other assets in the IHT-exempt personal estate.

Incidentally, the royal residences still have to be paid for all year round.
There might be reduced costs, of course, but the costs were not nil when the queen stayed at Balmoral, for example.

They don't have to host anyone at their private residences. That is their choice. It might be argued that it would be easier if they didn't.

"The rational (sic) is the no IHT on Sandrigham and Balmoral is because they are used as working residences as well (they do sometime host foreign dignitaries there) but mainly to keep them free from politics and government influence..

If they had no other source of income than the crown estates they be vulnerable to manipulation from political factions or liable to try to get involved. It is part of creating the three separate estates of our government system- the crown, Parliament and the judiciary."

^This bit makes no sense at all.

What you seem to be saying is that the royal family need to be independently extremely wealthy to avoid interfering politically or being open to political manipulation?
Yet the civil service and local government workers seem manage this every day, even while doing actual work on policy and for different parties and government.

How about, instead: the royal family shouldn't be open to political manipulation because being apolitical is one of the few prerequisites of the job (not that they have necessarily always managed it) and they're paid very, very well to do just that.

The Sovereign Grant is literally millions and that's insufficient to guarantee their non-corruption?

They need a multi-million pound independent stream of income and tax-free inheritances on their personal income too before they can be trusted to stick to the job description?

And the part about the Crown, Parliament and Judiciary... is just bonkers.

Surely you're aware that the separation of Head of State, Legislature and Judiciary does not automatically mean that the Head of State requires a partially tax-free private independent income of several million pounds on top of a state-paid income of several million pounds.

I would suggest that anyone who needs an 8 figure partially tax-free private income on top of their multi-million pound "normal" income to ensure that they are not "vulnerable to manipulation" is wholly unsuited to public office.

(In any case, the actual reason why the royal family need a private income is because the Sovereign grant doesn't cover all their personal expenses - like bailing out one's offspring - but that still doesn't mean it should be tax free)

They’re related because you’re whinging about millions when the government’s given billions to its mates. Billions of our money. Which you don’t appear to care about.

Because you're married the thresholds sum to £1m. If you're leaving an estate worth more than £1m, you can hardly complain about 40% of what's above that figure being taken, your kids will be loaded anyway. Assuming of course that it hasn't all dribbled away in care home fees.

www.moneysavingexpert.com/family/inheritance-tax-planning-iht/

To all the ppl saying inheritance tax is theft - why isn't income tax theft too, then? Or vat?

And let's remind ourselves that inheritance tax is a tax on assets/wealth, as distinct from income. Failure to tax wealth at the same level as income has been identified as a main driver of increasing inequality in wealthy countries.

I'm not looking forward to paying inheritance tax on my mum's flat one day, but it's really one if the more progressive taxes.

Of course I care about it, why the hell wouldn't I. But start a thread about it you care so strongly. But frankly I don't understand why that seems to bother you more than the subject in hand. They equally wind me up. But you seem to want to downplay Charles by bringing it up. Why? The thread isn't about that.

The general thinking (which I subscribe to, despite my parents not having been wealthy enough for me to have to worry about inheritance tax) is that it's theft as it's a tax on an asset that has already been subjected to / the monies used to purchase it have already been taxed. For example:

Consider a house: salary is taxed then you pay stamp duty... then you pay inheritance tax

Finding new innovative ways to tax individuals (even those that focus on wealth which will hit those that have saved rather than squandered) isn't progressive, it's still day light robbery.

Haha, you make it sound like the Queen is going in debt... Revenue means all the income generated from assets that do not even belong to them. They have a massive portfolio of assets they own themselves making £££milllions each year, which they have only been able to amass by being royal, hoarding and using their privilege and power. They have opportunities to get richer that regular people like you and me will never get. Is that fair? no. Could we do something about it? Yes. But it'll never change.

One massively important method of influencing state affairs that no one but the Queen (and now the King) can do: they can vet and force alterations to laws as they go through parliament. To be clear, this bypasses the democratic process. They can completely force a law to serve in their own interest and there is nothing anyone can do about it. They have done this thousands of times, including to prevent making their wealth publicly known and to prevent having to pay taxes.

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/feb/08/royals-vetted-more-than-1000-laws-via-queens-consent

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/feb/07/revealed-queen-lobbied-for-change-in-law-to-hide-her-private-wealth

Consider a house: salary is taxed then you pay stamp duty... then you pay inheritance tax

Yes, consider a house. Ours has quadrupled in value since we bought it. That’s unearned, untaxed money - a hell of a lot of it. Surely £1 million taxfree and 60% of everything above that is enough for anyone. Unless they’re spectacularly greedy.

And how would you handle the case of assets that have depreciated in value since purchase? Would you suggest the public purse reimburses the loss?

Ultimately you've realised that gain as a result of taking a financial risk. With risk can come reward, although not always.

My view is that the simpler the tax system the better (as we save money in administering it, spend less political time discussing it; both savings of money and time that can be put to better use eg working bettering the country, supporting the vulnerable etc). and the lower the tax rate for everyone the better (as it encourages aspiration and rewards work).

On this more narrow point, I just fundamentally disagree with children being hit with tax bills right at the point they've lost their parents. Many may not be able to afford the bill with the result being a need to sell a family home etc. that's just not right.

Why can't people focus more time and energy bettering themselves and their own income rather than spending that time working out how to take more of what belongs to others.

Why's that then? Seems little unfair but can't really get worked up about it

yea but then it's unfair the life of privilege they were born into but that's life.

*I wonder if all these posters who dont care about the Royal families privileged tax system are so generous to someone working cash in hand or someone fiddling their benefits?

Doubt it*

i think the dont care brigade aren't saying it's not bad, more that it's something they can't change so why give it head space? It's like drugs, you might hate them but you can't stop people consuming them so why care?